{"id":7633,"date":"2021-03-14T04:41:13","date_gmt":"2021-03-14T04:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sportsnewsforyou.com\/?p=7633"},"modified":"2021-03-14T04:41:13","modified_gmt":"2021-03-14T04:41:13","slug":"leeds-team-take-first-mixed-relay-cup-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/?p=7633","title":{"rendered":"Leeds team take first Mixed Relay Cup title"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first Mixed Relay Cup was today declared a roaring success. With bumper crowds, global podium-mounting athletes and a natural amphitheatre courtesy of Nottingham city centre, British Triathlon\u2019s latest event was 90mins of can\u2019t-tear-your-eyes-away action.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Seventeen teams took part in the four-teammate tag race, each completing a 300m swim, two-lap 7.5km bike and 1-lap 1.5km run before handing over the honours to the next athlete. With four international teams, it didn\u2019t have the gobal impact of the World Champs, in Hamburg, but the predominantly British line-up showcased the very best of our nations\u2019s talent, drawing teams from the sport\u2019s top training centres across the UK.<\/p>\n

The two Leeds teams, although missing its most famous sons due to injury, were still the pre-race favourites, boasting four Olympians between them \u2013 Non Stanford, Gordon Benson and Lucy Hall all racing for Leeds II and honorary Leeds athlete Aaron Royle (of Australia) for Leeds I.<\/p>\n

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Hall\u2019s partner Mark Buckingham made up the Leeds II team, having got the call-up just 24hrs before the race start to replace Royle, who\u2019d been bumped up to the Leeds I squad to replace Jonny Brownlee.<\/p>\n

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Joining Royle in the top squad was last week\u2019s silver medallist in Stockholm, Jess Learmonth, Georgia Taylor-Brown and Tom Bishop.<\/p>\n

The Loughborough I team, meanwhile, boasted Commonwealth gold medallist Jodie Stimpson, Sophie Coldwell, Ben Dijkstra and Chris Perham, none of them strangers to a podium or 10.<\/p>\n

STAGE 1<\/p>\n

Nottingham\u2019s crowds \u2018thunder clap\u2019 did a fine job of mimicking the ITU\u2019s famous \u2018ba-boom\u2019 pre-race build-up, as the first 17 athletes took to the River Trent for a deep-water start.<\/p>\n

Loughborough I (Coldwell) was the first of the Brit teams to make a move, coming out second in the swim behind Japan\u2019s Fuka Sega. Leeds I (Taylor-Brown) and II (Stanford, on her first race back since the Leeds WTS in June, having struggled with injury in 2017) had okay swims to exit mid-pack. Although a strong swimmer, Sega is inexperienced on the bike and run and soon fell back post T2.<\/p>\n

Eleven athletes raced as one pack over the short, technical 7.5km bike course, Stanford the first to dismount into T2.<\/p>\n

Kate Waugh, 18, of the GB Juniors squad, kept Stanford company before Taylor-Brown and Canada\u2019s Joanna Brown overtook them both for first and second place.<\/p>\n

STAGE 2<\/p>\n

Taylor-Brown for Leeds I was the first to tag her teammate, Royle, who did a spectacular belly flop into the Trent, closely followed by Canada\u2019s Matt Sharp.<\/p>\n

Leeds II\u2019s Benson with Ali Brownlee\u2019s parting words still ringing in his ears \u2013\u201cRace clever\u201d \u2013\u00a0was the next in, ahead of Loughborough I\u2019s Perham.<\/p>\n

Royle, with a sizeable cushion out of T1 took the bike leg alone, the chasing trio \u2013 with a tactically slow Benson sitting at the back \u2013 unable to match his speed.<\/p>\n

By T2, Royle was 13secs ahead of the trio, but with fresher legs, the Leeds II\u2019s Benson was soon in front, keeping Canada\u2019s Sharp honest in second.<\/p>\n

STAGE THREE<\/p>\n

In this order, Benson passed to Hall; Sharp to Paula Findlay; Perham to Stimpson and Royle to Learmonth.<\/p>\n

By mid-bike, it was a four-way battle for three podium spots, and with a 1min advantage over the rest of the field, the quartet could take the pace down a notch.<\/p>\n

Onto the run it was Leeds I\u2019s Learmonth and Canada\u2019s Findlay who had the freshest legs, leaving Loughborough\u2019s Stimpson in third and Leeds II\u2019s Hall in fourth.<\/p>\n

STAGE 4\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Doing the final honours for Leeds I was Tom Bishop, who played a blinder from the start knowing that he might not have an answer for the run speed of Loughborough I\u2019s Dijkstra. By the start of the run, he\u2019d built a gap of 33secs.<\/p>\n

With fumbles in both transitions for the less experienced Dijkstra, Bishop was able to romp home to claim a comfortable victory for the Leeds I team. Dijkstra\u2019s followed him in for Loughborough I\u2019s silver, while Jeremy Briand ran through for Canada\u2019s bronze. Having only been back in the UK for two days, Buckingham did a solid job to give Leeds II fourth at the finish.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t think I had it in me actually,\u201d admitted the winning team\u2019s Learmonth post-race. \u201cSo I\u2019m quite surprised. But I just had to go max out and try not to get any penalties.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cLeeds was just really strong, I just couldn\u2019t get across to Tom [Bishop] on the bike, but we all fought fantastically so we\u2019ll be going home with smiles on our faces,\u201d said silver-medallist Dijkstra of Loughborough I at the line.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first Mixed Relay Cup was today declared a roaring success. With bumper crowds, global podium-mounting athletes and a natural amphitheatre courtesy of Nottingham city centre, British Triathlon\u2019s latest event was 90mins of can\u2019t-tear-your-eyes-away action. Advertisement Seventeen teams took part in the four-teammate tag race, each completing a 300m swim, two-lap 7.5km bike and 1-lap…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7633\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}